Cubs 5th Starter Battle Has a Clear Frontrunner

People are saying Hayden Wesneski.

Me, you and a lot of Cubs fans are people.

The Chicago Cubs entered spring training looking to replace a recovering Kyle Hendricks in the starting rotation. The camp battle was a three-man competition, but as we get closer to Opening Day it is impossible to find any Cubs fan out there who can say with a serious face that anyone other than Hayden Wesneski should be the fifth starter to begin the season.

On Saturday, Wesneski faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in his third spring training start and all he did was pitch four perfect innings. Yeah, that's how you create more separation in a competition for a rotation spot.

The right-hander went through the Dodgers lineup with ease, striking out four, including all three batters he retired in the fourth inning.

Out of the 12 batters Wesneski faced and got out against the Dodgers, only Patrick Mazeika hit the ball out of the infield, flying out to Zach McKinstry in left field to end the third inning.

In his three spring training starts, Wesneski has allowed no earned runs, (1 unearned) five hits, two walks, while striking out 11 hitters in 8.2 innings.

Before spring training games got underway back in February, I wrote about the fifth starter competition and ultimately predicted that the veteran of the group, Adrian Sampson, would be given the first chance in the rotation. He's put up good results since signing with the Cubs in 2021, and unless he looked completely terrible in spring training, I thought he'd be the safe choice, at least early for the Cubs coaching staff, front office and whoever else is involved in the roster decisions.

Well...ugh...Adrian Sampson has looked terrible in spring training.

In two starts so far down in Arizona, Sampson has been tagged with six home runs, three against the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers, respectively. But again to be fair, and we say this all the time with pitchers in spring training, sometimes they go into these games trying to work on specific things. Whether it's a mechanical change or tweaking certain pitches, working on a new pitch, those could be the main goals and the results ultimately don't matter.

For Sampson, he's been working on his fastball and sinker.

However, as these pitchers progress through March, how they look on the mound has to matter to the Cubs because at the end of the day they should be trying to field the best team they possibly can from the very start of the season. Whatever Sampson is working on, you'd hope for his sake that he looks a lot better than he has.

Yet, even if Sampson does improve, Wesneski has clearly become the frontrunner for the fifth spot in the starting rotation. Also, depending on how Sampson looks in the next few weeks, he could find himself way behind in the depth chart because Javier Assad has been good in spring training and he could raise his stock depending on his performance in the World Baseball Classic with Mexico.

It's crazy to think that a spring training game in March could be important, but at least perception wise, Sunday's start for Sampson is huge against the Milwaukee Brewers. If the results don't end up improving, Sampson could end up at Triple-A Iowa on Opening Day.